Indian-American tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has joined the fight for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, has vowed to “promptly” pardon impeached former president Donald Trump if he is elected to the White House next year.
“It would be much easier for me to win this election if Trump were not in the race, but I stand for principle over politics. I pledge to pardon Trump immediately on January 20, 2025 and restore the rule of law to our country”. Ramaswamy tweeted on Friday.
The comments by Ramaswamy, who is campaigning on ‘anti-wake’ credentials, came after the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Trump with a 37-count indictment, accusing the former president of jeopardizing sensitive security secrets after to leave office in 2021.
Trump is the first former US president to face federal charges, including willful withholding of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corrupt concealment of a document or record, concealment of a document in a federal investigation , plan to conceal and make false statements and representations.
Trump, who is running for a second presidential term and has been the front-runner among Republicans, praised fellow candidate Ramaswamy after the political rookie even squared off with former Vice President Mike Pence in a poll last month.
Ramaswamy said in his post that you cannot have two levels of justice: one for Trump and one for Biden.
“I never thought the day would come when the president of the United States would delegate the Department of Justice to arrest his main rival in the middle of an election,” said the 37-year-old biotech executive.
In an interview with The New York Post, Ramaswamy also praised Trump, saying the former president “sets a high bar.”
“He’s a friend. I know him. I really think he cares about national unity,” Ramaswamy had said.
Stating that there are also serious legal questions about the president’s power to declassify documents, Ramaswamy called the Justice Department’s move to impeach Trump “hypocritical.”
“This is an affront to all citizens: we cannot become a banana republic where the ruling party uses police force to arrest their political opponents. It is hypocritical for the Justice Department to selectively prosecute Trump but not Biden,” Ramaswamy said.
In addition to Ramaswamy, fellow Republican candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis criticized the indictment, saying there had been what he called double standards in issuing the charges.
At a party convention in Greensboro, North Carolina, DeSantis skinned what he called “weaponry” from government agencies.
However, he did not mention Trump by name in his speech. Trump is due to appear in federal court on June 13, calling it “a dark day” for the country.
“I am an innocent man,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that he has been “indicted, apparently for the Pitts hoax.”
–IANOS
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(Only the headline and image in this report may have been modified by Business Standard staff; all other content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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